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The Israeli media on Tuesday picked up on the fact that renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in Washington had gotten off to a rocky start after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that what he was aiming for was an independent state ethnically cleansed of all Jews.

"In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands," Abbas told reporters in Cairo on Monday following a meeting with interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour.

The statement was a difficult one for Israelis to swallow, especially since one of Abbas' peace demands is that Israel provide thousands more work permits to Palestinian laborers and open its gates to settlement by millions of so-called "Palestinian refugees."

But that the Palestinians expect their future state to be Judenrein - cleansed of Jews - was never in doubt.

In an interview with Tablet Magazine in 2011, Palestinian Ambassador to the US Maen Rashid Areikat clearly stated that no Jew would be allowed to reside in the State of Palestine.

"Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?" Areikat was asked by interviewer David Samuels, to which the ambassador answered, "Absolutely."

Similar statements have been uttered by Palestinian officials since the launch of the peace process nearly two decades ago.

In fact, the Palestinian Authority under Abbas continues to enforce the death penalty against any Arabs who dare to sell land to Israeli Jews.

In 2012, Hebron resident Mohammed Abu Shahala was reportedly tortured and sentenced to death by the Palestinian Authority for brokering the sale of a local apartment to a Jewish family.

In 2010, a Palestinian court ruled in favor of an appeal by public prosecutor Ahmed al-Mughani requesting that anyone found guilty of selling land to a Jew automatically receive the death penalty.

Al-Mughani felt the law in its prior form had been too lax by allowing Abbas to indefinitely delay the execution of any "traitor" who had dealings with the hated Jews.

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